Back the Way I Came
by But You Can Call Me Willow
Summary: Percy Jackson can only remember parts of his life, and it's really starting to annoy him. One-shot. Percabeth.


**So.**

**Basically this is a one-shot of what I desperately hope will happen in Neptune's Son. I'm aware that some bits contradict with canon of the Lost Hero, but you know, artistic licence. **

**Also, I wrote this for a contest over on deviantART, if anyone wants to check it out over there, feel free to message me.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson. **

Percy Jackson can only remember parts of his life, and it's really starting to annoy him.

He's become painfully aware of the glares he gets when he lets 'Poseidon' slip out instead of 'Neptune' around camp, and the whispers that seem to follow him everywhere.

One of the Ares- _no, _he tells himself, _Mars. And there's probably a perfectly logical reason you know you could beat him in battle- _kids is ribbing him about being the only son of Neptune in camp, and Percy snaps back it him it's only to stop World War 3, and he stops because he doesn't know what that means.

It's not the first time he's done it. He remembers once he was in an argument with a daughter of Ceres- not, Demeter, Ceres- about something stupid like rollerblades and he muttered "Go eat your cereal," and he had no idea why.

His past keeps cropping up, because most of the camp would rather they had some guy called Jason hanging around instead of him so he tries to remember because it might help him get back somewhere nicer.

Because in Percy's dreams, the people are mostly nice.

He remembers a place that sells strawberries. He remembers a woman with brown hair streaked with grey who wants to be a writer, and the second man she truly loved whose name sounds like a fish.

There's a girl with frizzy red hair and paint splattered clothes and a boy with goat legs who laughs strangely, and a fat man wearing leopard prints who doesn't really want to be there.

Sometimes, though it's less like a dream and more like a footprint in the sand, he remembers a buff guy with a knack for fixing things and a girl, his girlfriend, who made a very big mistake but fixed it when it mattered most.

And it drives Percy mad, because he knows them, all of them, but he can't remember who they are.

Usually, in his dreams, there are two brothers with cheeky grins and an ugly girl saying "You ready to get creamed, Prissy?", Percy's brother, who only has one eye and a man who switches between a wheelchair and the bottom half of a horse.

But there's always _her. _A tan girl with grey eyes and blonde hair, who loves designing and fighting and Percy, and Percy loves her back, more than he thought possible before he met her, because she really is amazing, and for all her faults and her burning temper, she's the most amazing person Percy's ever met and he'll never love anyone else more.

_What is her name?_

Sometimes he tries to see how much he can remember about her, just to see if her name might pop up in the list of random facts.

She hates spiders and nachos and Juno- Hera? - but she loves her family, though she didn't once, and a girl with spiky black hair and a boy with blue eyes and a scar down one cheek (he was the true hero, but Percy doesn't know why).

Annabelle, maybe?

A ship arrives at camp, and it has three teenagers on it, two boys and a girl, and the whole camp starts celebrating because the mighty Jason had returned, and in all the shouting and laughing Percy finds himself standing next to a girl with flat brown hair, who turns to him and says "You're Percy Jackson, aren't you?" he nods, because this girl probably isn't a monster and he has his pen in his pocket if she is.

She grins at him. "Annabeth showed me photos. I'm Piper Mclean, by the way." He feels like he's been punched in the gut, because how can he not remember _Annabeth_, after all they've been through and all they've done, and how beautiful and amazing she is, and he'll never forgive himself for forgetting.

"How is she? Is she okay? Oh Gods, is she worried?" The other non-Jason boy appears beside her.

"Annabeth? Oh, she's cool, but she might kill you. She was kinda annoyed last time we saw her."

Piper punched him in the arm. "Leo!" She turns back to Percy and smiles. "Don't listen to him; she'll be so happy to see you." Leo gives Percy a good-natured grin, and it reminds him of Beckendorf- _that was his name- _before heading back to the food table.

Percy goes to ask more about Annabeth, but Piper's turned away from him and is staring at Jason.

"Do you think he'll stay here?" She asks, more to herself than him, and he doesn't say the answer, because he knows that in Jason's situation he'd never leave.

According to Leo, it was a shorter trip back to Camp Half Blood than it was from it, which Percy suspected both he and Piper were relieved about. Percy had developed a nasty habit of reciting everything he thought he'd forgotten at random intervals ("And Tyson calls them fish-ponies! Once Nico summoned the dead with Happy Meals! I love blue food!")

Piper had spent most of the journey in the hull, crying about Jason, Leo told him. Percy felt sorry for her, but he understood Jason's position.

They pull into the dock at Camp Half Blood, and Percy looks for faces he knows, and he spots Katie Gardner standing next to Travis Stoll, and Chiron at the front with Clarisse and Grover by his side.

Percy sprints off the boat and grins at Chiron, who begins to say "Perseus Jackson, it is to the great relief of-" but Clarisse cuts him off.

"Annabeth's up in the Big House." Percy could've kissed her, but you know, it's Clarisse, so he just nods at her, beams at Grover, runs past Nyssa and Michael Yew, who gives him a thumbs up, and he reaches the Big House before he can think.

Annabeth is sitting on the kitchen bench sharpening her dagger.

Percy stops because everything he was going to say and everything he's ever thought rushed out of his head so he just stood there and muttered "Hi."

Annabeth looks up and her dagger hits the floor. The look on her face is so full of fear, but of hope as well, and it makes Percy's heart break.

"Do you remember me?" she asks, and her voice is barely a whisper, so he responds the only way he knows.

"No duh, Wise-Girl." And she's across the room in less than a second and hugs him so hard he thinks his ribs might snap, but it doesn't matter because she's Annabeth and they're together again, and she's crying and he might be too, and he doesn't want to let go.

He does, eventually, he doesn't know how long, and kisses her on the forehead and then on the mouth, and she looks up at him and says "I'm so sorry."

He hugs her again and she starts crying but chokes out "I should never have stopped looking." He mutters "Doesn't matter, I shouldn't have gone missing." And she laughs and sobs at the same time then says "I should've come down to the docks, Clarisse told me I should, but I just couldn't… I couldn't be disappointed." Percy hugs her tighter and tells her he'll never leave again, not as long as he's alive, and he means it, every word.

She leans up and whispers into his shoulder. "Race you down to the docks, Seaweed-Brain."


End file.
